That's Shakespearean for the political melodrama "Boss" is kicking off its second season on Starz on Friday and virtually every character is up to no good. Last year, Kelsey Grammer proved he was much more than a master of fussy comic timing when he burst upon the TV screen as magnificently flawed Chicago Mayor Tom Kane, a Machiavellian urban monarch who is struggling mightily to keep both his fractured political machine and even more broken family intact against mounting challenges, including his diagnosis of an incurable neurological disease known as Lewy body dementia.

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On the political front, virtually everyone around him was in the thrall of power in season 1 and is even more besotted this season. At home, Kane's wife, Meredith (Connie Nielsen), the daughter of the former mayor, is constantly building and nurturing her own power base. She shows up at official events on Kane's arm, but that's because her support of him is extended only when it suits her own goals. Kane's daughter, Emma (Hannah Ware), is a drug addict estranged from her father.

Kane's other "family" at City Hall last season included his coolly efficient personal aide, Kitty O'Neill (Kathleen Robertson), who was not only having an affair with the seemingly clean-cut, good-guy state treasurer, the very married Ben Zajac (Jeff Hephner), now running for governor, but who had just enough conscience left last season to cause her to self-destruct and flee from the Kane machine.

At the start of the second season Friday night, Kane is more alone than ever. His daughter is in jail, Meredith knows something is physically wrong with him but doesn't know the specifics, Kitty has repaired to her mother's home and Kane's most trusted confidant, Ezra Stone (Martin Donovan), has been killed.

Sustained panic

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on Kane's life and career and he is in a sustained panic which he struggles to keep under control against mounting odds, including the more rapid progression of his disease.

Created by Farhad Safinia and executive-produced, in part, by Gus Van Sant and Grammer, "Boss" is an unrelenting dramatization of the maxim that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The characters are complex and driven, and when cornered by life or their political or personal adversaries, they default to scheming.

Even those who initially seemed to be the heroes of the piece have been corrupted by power, including Sam Miller (Troy Garity), a crusading reporter for the Sentinel who last season pursued Kane and his cronies regardless of the economic harm to his newspaper and the efforts of his editor to keep him on a tight leash. His zeal resulted in his own elevation to the top job.

Now that he's in charge, he's as determined as ever to find out what Kane is up to with a long-delayed airport expansion project and a huge effort to renovate a notoriously crime-ridden public housing project known as Lenox Gardens.

But here's the thing: While continuing to tell himself that he's on the side of right, Miller has become intoxicated by his own power as much as Kane, Meredith and Ben Zajac. In the early episodes of the second season, we come to understand he's really no better than the man he considers public enemy No. 1. Like Kane, he has few boundaries and will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and that ruthlessness obviates the supposed nobility of his crusade.

In every way, these deeply imperfect characters become even more desperate in the second season, so much so that certain plot developments come off as desperate as well, as if Safinia and company are in a panic over the show's less-than-stellar ratings and the irrational absence of Emmy love for Grammer's thundering performance. There's a whole Monica Lewinsky incident, for one thing (no, not involving Tom Kane, a stained blue dress or a cigar) and an explosively violent incident later on.

And then there are the hallucinations. As Tom's disease progresses, he's prone to seeing things more and more frequently. Occasionally, they are actual reptiles. At other times, they are the political variety. The hallucinations work in part because they give us greater insight into Kane's deteriorating mind, but they still feel gimmicky, regardless of the reality of Lewy body dementia.

If the show's first season took some dramatic inspiration from "Macbeth," the new season looks to another Shakespeare tragedy with the arrival of a wide-eyed young aide named Ian Todd (Jonathan Groff) whose almost serenely pleasant mien hides a ruthlessness that is so all-consuming that we quickly understand he may have even fewer boundaries than Kane himself.

Groff, who had a recurring character arc in "Glee," plays Todd as bland pretty boy but with an expression so fixed and so unrevealing, we begin to suspect there's much more to him than meets the eye. Kane has little use for him at first, but seems to respond to a kindred ambition. As he gradually begins to understand Todd can't be trusted, he enlarges his role on his staff. We look to Todd to become Iago to Kane's Othello.

Greatness remains

Much of what made the first season of "Boss" great carries over to the early episodes of the second season. Although the characters have only scant or fleeting redeeming personal values, we continue to buy into their machinations because of how they are created and because of superbly convincing performances at every level of the cast.

As the ratings dipped in the first season, some retroactively criticized Starz for giving the show a second-season renewal even before the premiere had aired. But the cable channel made the right call. Even if we never see a third season of "Boss," just having another chance to see Grammer rage against the dying of the light is a gift to discerning TV viewers.

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